The Norwegian state oil company is believed to be looking to take a major role in developing a cluster of fields &ndash; Umid, Babek, Zafar and Mashal &ndash; centred on the Umid gas discovery, based on a similar model to the BP-operated Azer-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) project in which Statoil is a…

Hosting this week’s Eurovision Song Contest has put Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government and its human rights record under international spotlight. But attention should also focus on Europe’s relations with Azerbaijan, which remain guided by narrow energy interests. Although Azerbaijan holds more political prisoners than any other Eastern European country, the EU…